James Baker among GOP group pressing carbon tax to Trump

James A. Baker, who served as the U.S. Secretary of State between 1989 and 1992. (AP Photo/Nousha Salimi)

Some big name Republicans have joined on to a coalition lobbying to combat climate change through a carbon tax.

A group that includes former Secretary of State James Baker III, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Walmart Chairman Rob Walton are scheduled to meet today with senior White House officials including Vice President Mike Pence on a proposal that would tax carbon emissions and then return that money to U.S. taxpayers through a rebate.

“It is a conservative, free market, limited government approach to a problem,” Baker, of Houston, told CNN in an interview aired Tuesday night. “Without debating how severe the problem is or the extent to which it might be man-made, it is a problem right now at least. And Republicans have not been at the table, basically because we’re either been skeptics or deniers.”

As concerns rise over the impact greenhouse gas emissions are having on the earth’s atmosphere, some economists have pressed the federal government to institute a carbon tax as the most direct and least complicated means of addressing climate change. Supporters of the proposal include former Vice President Al Gore, environmental groups and even some large oil companies, including Exxon Mobil.

But Republican and Democratic leaders alike have resisted, concerned that rising prices at the gasoline pump and heating bills would lead to a backlash from voters.

The conservative group Heritage Action lashed out at the plan Wednesday morning as an “just the latest example of policy solutions crafted by and made for cultural elites.”

“There is no room in the Republican Party for a carbon tax. These so-called Party elders might want to meet with former Secretary Clinton to discuss this idea.”

Under the plan put forward by the Climate Leadership Council, the U.S. government would institute a $40 per ton carbon tax, according to the New York Times. That revenue, estimated at $300 to $400 billion a year, would be returned to taxpayer through a dividend they estimate at $2,000 a year for an average family of four.

Baker, whose law firm Baker Botts represents a long list of oil and gas companies, could also get a cold reception at the White House. President Donald Trump has in the past called climate change a Chinese hoax and more recently has questioned predictions by scientists of flooded coastlines, crop failures and water shortages.

“I don’t think you’re going to have that conversation or debate unless the executive branch shows some interest in it. We’re hopeful that will happen but it may not,” Baker told CNN. “When you have companies like BP and Exxon and Total and Shell all saying we ought to have a carbon tax, I think we ought to listen to that.”